Cajun Chicken

This week I'm planning ahead and have recipes for 5 dinners. I figured out what recipes yesterday morning and then went grocery shopping. I spent $65 and still need to buy a ham tomorrow. It seems like a lot but when I think about it even $75 (if the ham costs $10) for a family of 6 to eat for 5 days isn't bad. I had some stuff at home already though so it probably would have been closer to $100 if I had to buy everything single ingredient. Still not bad for a family of 6 for 5 dinners.

Tonight I made Cajun Chicken Pasta. It was SO GOOD! I really liked the slight spice and loved the taste the bell peppers gave the dish. I have to say I was expecting more heat when I took my first bite; I put a lot of Cajun spice in it. I even put in some cayenne to add a little extra kick. I didn't use scallions and I only used red peppers. Yellow would have added some more color but they cost so much more. Red usually does too but they were on sale. Oh and I used white onions instead of red onions. They ended up looking just like the noodles in the end which was nice since my family aren't big onion people.

I loved that it was healthy too. It makes me feel good to cook food that I know is good for my family. And when they like what I make....that's just icing on the cake.
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I ran yesterday. I really like that the weather has been nice enough to have Saturday runs. I decided to run Goosenest again to the Peteetneet museum in Payson. It was only 3.76 miles I realized last week after I ran it. It kind of upset me all last week that I didn't go a full 4 miles and that I stopped for that one block. So this week I decided to do the same run but to run around the block at the end. I knew that would give me just over the 4 miles I wanted.

When I started out it was beautiful and sunny outside or so I thought. I put on short sleeves and left my light pull over and gloves at home. After about 1/4 mile I was kind of wishing I'd brought one of those two things. While it was sunny and beautiful it was also crisp and a little breezy. The "breeze" ended up being against me most of the run. I really thought about quitting most of the 2nd mile. I figured with the breeze against me I'd have a good reason to quit. I didn't end up walking though. I knew I'd be angry at myself for doing it. But believe me I thought about it a bunch that second mile. Sometimes I have to just make it to the next "thing". Whether it be the next stop sign or intersection or mail box, I just tell myself to make it to that mark and then I'll decide then whether to stop or how much further to go. Usually when I get to that spot I'm OK enough to keep going to the next one and then the next one. I'll continue that for awhile, usually until I realize I've done that for a mile or more and I might as well just finish the run. :-)

Whatever it takes some runs! The last 2 blocks were all uphill which was really hard but I was glad it ended that way. I really want to get better at running uphill. It really is terrible that I've stayed away from hills so much but maybe I needed to get better at running in general before trying the hard stuff-like running uphill. Man man lia.